Conclusions

Analyzing results gathered with 3DMark franchise, we can say for sure that GeForce 7950 GX2 is the fastest single-slot video card available on the market today. XFX model, “GeForce 7950 GX2 M570 1GB DDR3 XXX” (PV-T71U-ZDD9), is even faster, as it is factory-overclocked.

On 3DMark05, for example, while we saw some performance difference on lower resolutions compared to Radeon X1900 XTX from ATI and GeForce 7900 GTX, was at 1600x1200 with all image quality settings enabled that overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2 from XFX showed all its power, being around 20% faster than Radeon X1900 XTX and 30% faster than GeForce 7900 GTX.

On Shader 2.0 simulation with 3DMark03, the performance difference was even higher and could be seen on all resolutions and configurations used. On this program the reviewed card from XFX was between 60% and 80% faster than Radeon X1900 XTX and between 40% and 60% faster than GeForce 7900 GTX, depending on the configuration that was used.

We are pretty confident that performance difference between the reviewed card and Radeon X1900 XTX is even higher at resolutions above 1600x1200. Unfortunately we didn’t have a video monitor capable of displaying above 1600x1200.

On Doom 3, however, we didn’t see any significant performance difference between those three video cards, probably due to the CPU and amount of RAM we were using (we should change our video card testing platform very soon, the problem is collecting again all data for all video cards, and some of them we had to return to the manufacturer).

And on Far Cry funny enough other video cards were slightly faster than the reviewed card, keeping the same performance level of GeForce 7900 GTX.

We also hadn’t any SLI or CrossFire configurations to compare this video card to, so we kept the comparison only between single video cards.

Keep in mind that according to nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2 will be SLI-compatible pretty soon by just upgrading the video driver.

This video card is clearly targeted to users willing to run at least at 1600x1200 with all video quality enhancements enabled and have a lot of money. According to nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2 came to the market between USD 599 and USD 649. This model from XFX is costing, on average, USD 683.

In you research carefully you will find a huge price differences. For example, this model is quoted at USD 700 at Tigerdirect.com, however the other overclocked GeForce 7950 GX2 model from XFX (520M Extreme) can be found there at USD 600. Honestly, we don’t think it is worth paying one hundred bucks just to have a factory-overclocked model as you can achieve the same overclocking level just by configuring two sliders on the video driver that will cost you nothing.

Of course this video card is targeted for the ultra enthusiasts that want to have the latest, the fastest and the more expensive pieces of hardware in their dream machine. Other very high-end video cards especially GeForce 7900 GTX (which is quoted around USD 500 at this same store) continue to be an excellent choice if you want a great performance with all image quality settings enabled at very high resolutions but don’t think it is worthwhile spending USD 600 or more on a video card.

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